


Ruffled Feathers

by MirandaBeth



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 11:39:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirandaBeth/pseuds/MirandaBeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fashion, fears, feathers and romance in the Games culture: Octavia's birthday in the year of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ruffled Feathers

This year marks the first time I've ever had a proper boyfriend to spend time with on my birthday. I know Felix has been planning a surprise for me, and I'm so excited. We've been together for two months, and I still can't get over the way he looks at me, as though I am someone worth having.

I wish I could go back and tell the Octavia of three years ago how amazing her life was about to become. Or even the Octavia of four months ago. The Octavia from before the Seventy-fourth Games.

Felix wakes me early on the morning of my birthday. We stayed at his apartment last night (he had to wait for a good half hour yesterday while I carefully picked out my birthday outfit before leaving my place) and I already feel like it's a special day. He's in a great mood, but he still won't tell me what the surprise is. We dress, and he takes me to the roof. He's arranged a private hovercraft ride, the destination hidden from me.

But at some point, as we enjoy our breakfast spread and the country slips by below us, I become certain of where we're going. I don't let on, because he's so pleased with making these plans by himself, but when the hovercraft lands and we alight at a familiar lake shore, I am not the slightest bit surprised.

"Happy birthday, Octavia," he says, with a sweet smile. "I couldn't think of anything you'd like more."

I can hardly speak. The Cornucopia gleams in the sunlight behind me, and if I close my eyes briefly, I can see Katniss Everdeen pinned to the ground by the big girl from Two nearby. The grass under my bright pink heels is still stained with poisoned berries, or maybe Peeta Mellark's blood. I am standing on the spot where both the girl I cared for and her young boyfriend nearly died.

Felix laughs. "Don't worry, I'll take that as a 'thank you'."

"Of course," I say, although my mouth is oddly dry. "This is so thoughtful, Felix." I give him a kiss.

He smiles. "It's only a day trip, I'm afraid. You have to be back for your party tomorrow. But I knew you'd like this. Come on!"

He takes my hand, and leads me towards the Cornucopia.

This isn't my first visit to an arena site, although I've only been once before. I know what to expect – the historical displays, the visitors' centre, the hotel, the marked routes through the arena. The little kiosks and cafés. The costumes and wigs and weapons.

The last time I went was on a vacation with my family when I was in my early teens. The site of the Sixty-fifth Hunger Games.

Even thinking of that title now wakes the memory of powerful emotions in me.

I'd talked about those Games for months after they ended, about the strong, handsome, deadly boy from District Four with beautiful eyes, who'd become part of my every thought and fantasy. I'd watched my highlights tape until it stopped working and my parents had to get me a new copy. I knew exactly when to fast-forward (the few parts when Finnick Odair wasn't on the screen) and I'd been frame by frame through those key scenes, the ones where you could see his muscles rippling as he used his trident, and repeatedly, when no one in my family was around, the scene they'd included of an occasion when he'd bathed in a stream.

My parents must have been pretty sick of me talking about it – I know how boring I can get. My brother Julius was definitely sick of hearing about it, although he and his little friends had liked Finnick well enough while he was on screen triumphing over his opponents. That was different, though. Finnick was never _theirs_ the way he was mine. My school folder was covered in his pictures, and I made sure that everyone knew how much I loved him. I guess I wasn't the only one in my year who had his picture on things. That made me angry, but at least my group knew that he was mine. I could mostly forget the others existed.

Visiting his arena was the logical extension of my craze. Or maybe my parents thought it was the only way to shut me up about him. In any case, all I wanted was to see the places he'd seen and touch things he'd touched.

My parents sent Julius and I exploring and stayed in the hotel themselves, heading to a screening booth with drinks in their hands. I left Julius playing with the replica weapons scattered around the Cornucopia and went off on my own. This trip was for me, and I didn't want to share it with anyone.

But in the end, it wasn't quite the solitary experience I was hoping for.

The arena site was packed with people. I'm sure they didn't care about him as much as I did, but there were plenty of other visitors at all the key locations – the spot where he'd struck his final blow and become a victor, the spot where his trident had come floating down out of the sky. The bathing location was pretty close to where he'd got the trident – that had happened not long afterwards – and there was a whole group of girls, a few years older than me, giggling at the place where he'd removed his shirt before getting into the stream. It made me angry. I wished they'd all just go away.

I walked until I was quite tired, following one of the trails laid out which showed the various routes he had taken through the arena. By the time I found a nook amongst a thicket of bushes I recognised as a place where he'd slept, I was confused and disoriented. On my tape, Finnick had woken up here, gone to the stream and bathed. I was sure it hadn't taken him this long, and I hadn't pictured the ground as being so hard to walk on. I sat down in the place he'd once slept, drawing my legs up to my chest. I imagined, like I sometimes did, that Finnick was watching me – but this time, for some reason, I couldn't believe that he would be at all interested in or attracted to me. I wasn't pretty, and even then, as a young teen, I carried extra weight. I wasn't muscled like he was. He was only my age or thereabouts, but I could never do the things he had done.

But if I closed my eyes, I could pretend.

I don't know how long I sat there, absorbing the surroundings and letting myself quietly feel close to him. I pretended I was him, getting into fights and emerging victorious, looking dazzlingly beautiful as I did it. I pretended I was me, but a prettier, stronger me, and pictured a future where he would come to the Capitol for the Games, and would see me, and recognise the person who would make his life complete.

When I finally stood up, knowing I needed to meet my parents, there was a boy about my age walking alone on the trail coming towards me. He looked tired by the walk, like me. He looked fed up with the crowds, like me. In fact, as I looked at him, I could see all my emotions reflected in his face, all the strength and the complexity of my feelings for Finnick. And he looked annoyed to see me there. Like I was to see him.

Even my solitary feelings didn't belong just to me.

I haven't thought much about that arena visit in a while. But I'm thinking about it now, as Felix and I explore the lake shore and the Cornucopia of the Seventy-fourth Games. Felix is as eager to play with the weapons as my little brother was back then. This is admittedly pretty fun, especially when our play fight turns into an excuse for him to pin me against the golden horn and kiss me.

We sit on a bench that's been installed at the base of the Cornucopia. There's a lovely view of the lake from here, marred a little bit by what the historians have left of the debris from when Katniss blew up the food pyramid. (It's all completely safe now, of course.)

"I still can't believe you know her," Felix says, obviously remembering the explosion as well. It was certainly one of the most exciting days of these Games. "She was _great_."

"She is," I agree. "And she's just- I mean, she's really- she's only sixteen."

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say.

Felix laughs into my hair, which is decorated with bright pink extensions today to match my shoes. "Sixteen's plenty old enough," he says.

My mind drifts back again to that other arena visit nine years ago, and suddenly I remember, with a nasty kind of jolt, why I tried so hard to put it out of my mind.

It was just a few years later. My school folder had been replaced at least twice by then, and was no longer covered in pictures of Finnick Odair. Now I liked to cover it with patchwork pieces of fabric of the brightest colours I could find, testing them out against each other the way I tested them against my skin and my hair.

But I guess people remembered how crazy I was about Finnick. Just like I'd wanted them to. Because it was definitely deliberate when Martina Ashworth cornered me in the schoolyard to brag about sleeping with him.

I didn't like Martina. Her father was someone high up in the Games, as she was always reminding us. She always got anything she wanted. We'd been friends for a while when we were little, and she'd looked a bit more like me then, a bit round, but then her father had been promoted and she'd immediately had every bit of fat removed from anywhere it didn't belong. My parents didn't have enough money for that – I know, because I begged them. They couldn't give me money to change the shape of my face, either. By the time we were sixteen, Martina's nose had changed so many times that half the time I wouldn't have recognised her if it weren't for her trademark gold beehive. It wasn't a wig; she had it styled that way every morning before school.

Her boyfriend Priscus was the most popular boy in school. I never liked him, mainly because he never had any time for fat girls, even girls like me who kept up with the latest fashions. He sang in a band. There was a rumour he liked music so much he'd had a chip implanted into his brain so he could listen to music inside his head. It would certainly explain the vacant look he'd get sometimes during class.

This must have been during the Sixty-eighth Games. Martina's dad had designed an element of the arena that was new that year, a fire trap that was admittedly very spectacular. There had been a party in his honour on the night it had been used for the first time. The guests got to watch on big screens when the girl from District Ten got caught in the trap, and President Snow himself had toasted Martina's dad. I know all this because the party was on television.

I guess that was where Martina and Priscus had met Finnick. Some of Martina's friends had got invitations to the party too, and I'd heard them talking in school about the celebrities who were there and how you hadn't really experienced the Games fully until you'd watched them in the company of victors, people who'd been there themselves. I didn't see him in the footage of the party, but he must have been there. Because I don't know how else Martina and Priscus could have taken him into their bed.

I didn't really understand what she was saying at first, that day she cornered me in the school grounds. Finnick, _my_ Finnick, would never have gone for someone like Martina, and certainly not for someone like Priscus. I had no choice but to believe her, though. I don't think she would have had the imagination to make up some of the details she told me, the things they'd done with him. It took a long time for me to forget the images her words conjured up in my mind.

I felt so stupid, after that, whenever I thought about my foolish crush. After that day I put all my pictures of Finnick away in a box and tried to forget how childish I'd been. I hoped everyone else would forget, too.

But I guess that was part of the reason I wanted to work for the Games when I left school. By then, I'd forgotten why I loved the Games so much, but I think part of me still held my image of the strength and beauty of that boy who'd been such an important part of my adolescence, and I just wanted to be in a place where I could remember it. Not him, exactly, but the girl I was then. I saw the Games as a place where I could go back to that younger, more innocent version of myself.

Whatever my reasons, this year, only my third year of working there, it has paid off. I'm not a kid any more, watching the Games through a fantasy. I'm part of a team that has created a victor. I helped Katniss Everdeen to look her best, and she not only won but captivated the entire city with her beautiful love story.

And me? I'm living the life I always wanted. I occasionally get recognised in public, after my appearance on the victory stage (not to mention the magazine articles and news programmes that dissected our outfits afterwards). Felix finally noticed me, after years of moving in the same circles, and now we've been together for two months. This winter, I will get to join the Victory Tour and see the districts with my own eyes. The number of party invitations I receive has at least tripled in the months since the Games.

But as Felix and I return to the lake shore to wait for a shuttle, that stain on the grass seems to creep across my mind. I loved these Games, the Seventy-fourth. They were a wild ride of emotions while they were happening, but I couldn't have dreamed of a better ending. So then why do I feel so uneasy to be standing on the very spot where Katniss and Peeta became victorious?

Maybe it's just that I'm older now than I was when I obsessively replayed every moment of Finnick Odair's victory. Some of my friends, even at our age, have talked about Peeta or Katniss almost in the way that I remember talking about Finnick. Well, they're not _that_ much younger than us. But somehow, I can't help seeing them both as children.

It's no secret that I think Katniss is amazing. I think I'm much better at holding my tongue than I was when I was a teenager, but there was one time I saw Julius during the Games, and after hearing me talk about Katniss, he teasingly reminded me of how I used to sound back when I was a stupid child gushing over Finnick Odair. And I guess if everyone didn't know during the Games how great I thought she was, they probably picked it up when they got the invitations to the bird-themed birthday party I'm having tomorrow.

But this is different to my schoolgirl crush on Finnick. At least, I think it's different. It feels different. I do know Katniss, like Felix said. I know she is a real person. She gets cranky sometimes, and afraid. She bites her nails. She's only small, much smaller than she appears on screen. And this real girl did really amazing things, some of them in the very spot I'm standing now.

I don't know. It makes me feel weird.

We catch the shuttle out to Katniss and Peeta's cave. I don't know how the kids found their way back to the lake from this spot, it's such a long way and all the trees look the same. But the shuttles know the route. We're lucky – for whatever reason, the arena site isn't crowded today. There were a few other people back at the Cornucopia, but there's no one else out here. Apart from the little kiosk for refreshments, of course – it's a long way from the visitor's centre.

As the shuttle disappears and we are left alone, out of habit I try to picture myself as Katniss, try to imagine what it felt like to know that I was completely alone out here, except for the dying boy I was falling in love with.

I can't do it. Once upon a time, I could imagine all sorts of things about Finnick Odair, but I can't imagine this.

I guess the kiosk kind of gets in the way as well.

Felix interlaces his fingers with mine. "Look, I see the cave over there. Let's check it out."

I follow him into the cave, and again have that strange feeling of being disoriented. It _looks_ like it looked on the screen, but it feels… I don't know. It's cramped, and dirty, and manages to be both claustrophobic and too open. It's hard to climb into, as well, especially in my heels, even though I think they might have cleared some rocks from the opening to make it more accessible.

Felix sits down and pats a patch of dirt next to him. "Romantic, huh?" he grins.

I sit gingerly beside him. "Ugh, it's so _dirty_ ," I say.

He laughs, scooting closer to me. "Oh, we District Twelve people, we don't mind a bit of dirt," he says, batting his eyes. His silver eyelash implants catch the light filtering through the cave entrance.

"That's certainly true," I say. "They do turn up covered in it at the start of the Games, believe me."

He nudges me. "Play along," he says. "You must have thought about this."

"About what?" I say.

His lips catch me by surprise. I guess I really haven't been feeling the romance here, even though this place has already seen so much of it. But I kiss him back, wrapping my arms around him, trying to let myself sink into the sensations as his hands slide up under my shirt. I let him push me down to lie on the cold earth, but I'm still feeling strange, and as I turn my head to let him kiss my neck, I see it, in a corner of the cave. The gleam of discarded white rubber that tells me he is not the first person to have this idea.

I'm no prude, but I actually feel physically sick.

I remember the night the feast was announced. It was one of the rare nights I'd been watching by myself. We'd had a party the previous night, hosted by Venia, after the District Twelve tributes had finally teamed up and it looked like they might have a real chance. Effie Trinket had even managed to drag Haymitch out of Games Headquarters for a little while after he'd sent some food to the two of them, and Venia was all aflutter about being host to a victor, even if it _was_ only Haymitch. We were all thrilled at the love clearly blossoming between our two tributes in their little cave.

Except Haymitch, who had a bit to drink and kept talking about how much Peeta needed medicine. And how he wasn't allowed to even try to get the money to send it.

I ignored him at the time, because everything should have been okay now Katniss had found Peeta, but by late the next day, it was clear he had been right. Claudius Templesmith kept giving updates of Peeta's vital signs, his skyrocketing temperature. He interviewed a medical specialist who explained how inevitable Peeta's death was, if he didn't get medicine.

I had nowhere to be that night. Everyone was recovering from Venia's party. I'd gone shopping during the day to calm my nerves, but even new shoes couldn't stop me from thinking about those poor kids. Star-crossed lovers – I still don't really know what that phrase means, but it seemed so apt for them. Like there was always something in their way.

I sat in front of the television and ate my way through a box of chocolates, watching the kids talk in their cave and wondering if they knew how bad Peeta's infection was. And then came the announcement.

A feast. And no ordinary feast – each district would be offered the thing they needed most. That meant, surely, that District Twelve would be offered medicine for Peeta. The District Two tributes were excited, discussing the traps they could set for the others. The other two remaining tributes were probably making their own plans, but without anyone to tell them to, they weren't very interesting.

And Katniss and Peeta were arguing about which of them should live.

I can't explain why that hit me so hard. I've been watching the Games all my life, I know how they work. But never, in my time watching the Games, have I seen someone so determined to risk her life to save another player as Katniss was then. I remember how that phrase struck me, when Peeta said it: risk her _life_. The footage occasionally cut to the District Two tributes talking about the ways in which they would most like to kill Katniss. I've heard that kind of conversation before, any number of times in any given year, but now that it was Katniss they were talking about, I realised she could really die. Not just on my television screen, but for real.

It made no sense for her to go to the feast. The risk was too great, and if she didn't go, she'd have a real chance of winning, even if he didn't make it. If she went, they could both die. Peeta was so adamant that she stay that he threatened to follow her and get himself killed if she went.

And then Haymitch sent her the sleeping syrup. And she forced Peeta to eat it.

I set my glass of wine down on the coffee table and wept.

I felt like I understood something about love that night. There was nothing tender or romantic in that moment, just a girl determined to save the boy she loved. It was nothing like what I believed love to be, but it felt... real.

I dozed on the couch in front of the television, watching the live broadcast, not wanting to miss the feast at dawn. She kissed him before she set off in the morning, kissed him as if she might never see him again, and I realised again, _really_ realised, that she might not. She might be dead by the time he woke up.

The horror of that, the enormity of it, rolled over me like a wave. I couldn't move, not even to get some pills to calm me down. I sat there staring at the screen for hours, digging my fingernails into my palms as I finally watched Katniss face down the girl from Two. There was a moment when I was sure, absolutely sure that I was about to watch her die in pain, and I actually couldn't breathe until the big boy from Eleven stepped in. And then spared her life.

Claudius Templesmith pointed out with admiration what a long game Katniss had been playing, how her alliance with Rue had clearly had this purpose all along, but that didn't seem right, somehow. And then I was remembering how shattered Katniss had looked as the little girl died in her arms, and the enormity of it hit me again.

It was too much. There was something too big to think about hovering just beyond my thoughts. I made myself get up and call my friend Emilia – I had got into the habit of watching the Games with Venia and Flavius and the others by this stage, but I didn't want any of them then for some reason – and we went out for breakfast. She filled me in on the latest in our old school friends' affairs. We did talk about the Games, of course. Emilia had woken early to watch the feast that morning, too; she told me how excited she'd been. But the way she talked about it was soothing and familiar, about the strategies, and the odds of the five remaining players, and the beauty of the love story.

It did the trick. I was able to keep watching as normal after that.

Being here brings it all back, though. That risk Katniss took to save Peeta. What it would have meant if she'd failed.

None of that has anything at all to do with what Felix wants to do here.

I always find it hard to say no to Felix, but I guess he can feel my reluctance. He lets me sit up. "Are you okay?" he asks.

My shirt has become undone at some point, and I concentrate on getting the buttons fastened again, making sure they end up in the right holes. "Oh, yes," I say. I can't tell him what I was really thinking. I shouldn't have ever been thinking it. Not that I'm quite sure what it was, any more. "It's just honestly filthy in here. And I think I saw a spider."

He really doesn’t like spiders, so that gets him out of the cave pretty quickly. I take a last look around before I follow him, trying not to let my eyes land in that corner again. This is where Katniss decided that her love for Peeta was stronger than her need to survive.

The thought floats into my mind before I can stop it: could I ever make a decision like that?

I'm not very talkative for the rest of the trip. We take the behind-the-scenes tour in the catacombs, because Felix has a keen interest in arena design. I end up staring for a long time at the delivery mechanism for the mutts, and let him carry the conversation most of the way home, although I try my hardest to be happy and bubbly, because I don't want Felix to think I'm ungrateful.

When we get back to my apartment, he's pretty eager to take care of our unfinished business from the cave, and I go along with it. I even own a long dark wig which I don't stop him from putting on my head.

After he leaves, I cry for a long time. I'm not sure why.

I feel better afterwards, though. I feed the mice and play with them for a little while, and then settle down at my dining room table to make a list of the last-minute arrangements which still need to be made for the party tomorrow. I call Emilia, and she offers to come over so she can help me.

That's good. I don't want to be alone. I tidy up the bedroom before she arrives, though, and stuff the wig far into the back of a closet. It never suited me, anyway.

We have a great time celebrating the final hours of my birthday with some sparkling wine I have in the fridge and putting some finishing touches on my costume. It doesn't last, though. After she leaves and I go to bed I become suddenly afraid, and have to go and check that the front door is locked and that each room is free from intruders, although I _know_ it's not logical. I lie awake, unable to switch off the confused tumble of images from the day. Somewhere in all of it I realise that I haven't heard from my parents or Julius on my birthday. But maybe they tried to call while I was out.

When I do drift off, I don't sleep well. My dreams are filled with scenes from the Games, strange and vivid now that I have seen the locations for myself. Finnick Odair is my guide as I walk through the Seventy-fourth arena. Then he is standing by my bed, and Felix is there, and I feel like Finnick is accusing me, I don't know of what, but when I wake in the early morning, I feel guilty and tired and overwhelmingly sad. I feel like there's something I've forgotten to do, but I can't work out what it could be.

I throw myself into the party preparations. This is a much bigger function than anything I've ever hosted before. I've hired a small banquet hall, and the catering will be served by a dozen Avoxes. I dared to send invitations to some quite important people, and many of them have accepted. I really am moving up in the world.

Flavius has offered to do my hair, which I accepted gratefully. He meets me in the powder room early and weaves my feathery headpiece into my hair, until I can no longer see the auburn. For my costume, in honour of Katniss's mockingjay and the theme of the party I have chosen black feathers, but I've added bursts of orange throughout. It goes nicely with my skin, which I made sure to get re-done before my birthday. It had been getting a bit dated. I don't love this season's shade of green, but I'm glad of the change.

Flavius rests his hands on my shoulders when he is done, looking at me critically in the mirror. "Gorgeous," he says. "Enjoy your night, Octavia."

I intend to. I float out to the banquet hall, enjoying the brush of feathers against my skin, and looking around in satisfaction at the perfect room – the Avoxes lining the entrance with trays of drinks, the food heaped on tables everywhere I look. Gentle strings play from a new music chip – that was my birthday present to myself.

At the beginning, the party progresses beautifully. People have really made an effort with their costumes, which I'm pleased about, and there is even a photographer there to cover the night. I wish fleetingly that I'd been able to lose some weight before tonight, but really, I feel so pretty in my feathers and my new skin that the old concern doesn't really bother me.

For the next hour, I smile and greet people as they arrive. It seems never-ending, and the room is too warm, and I trip over my own words when I say hello to a junior Gamemaker and two politicians. I feel stupid and awkward, heat prickling across my skin, and they don't seem very interested in my greeting.

I stop to fan myself with a menu sign and get another drink, surveying the room. People have settled into groups, chatting amongst themselves, and I realise how few of them I actually know. Venia and Flavius have found some friends of theirs from before I joined the District Twelve team, and I don't feel like I can interrupt them. My parents and my brother haven't come. I start to feel awkward. It's my own party, and I don't seem to have a place. Emilia isn't here yet. Nor is Felix, which is odd, but not entirely unwelcome.

Just as I think that, Felix's arms slide around me from behind. "My little bird," he says. "You look beautiful."

He kisses me, and I manage not to flinch away, although I want to and I'm not sure why. He makes a face and removes a feather from his mouth. I don’t know whether it came from my headpiece or the long feather boa wrapped around his neck and arms. "Now, aren't you going to introduce me around?" he says.

His arms against my feathered costume are making me itchy. "Well, let's see," I say, squirming out of his grasp and pointing. "Over there are Venia and Flavius – you've met them – and a bunch of their friends I don't know. People I don't like from school are in _that_ corner, and other Games prep teams who don't really like me are in _that_ corner. Over _there_ are the press people I invited – they're the ones who look bored. Then over _there_ we've got," I number them with my fingers as I point, "politician – his wife – another politician – her husband – and that guy over there by the food with all the attractive girls hanging around him is a Gamemaker. And don't ask me who the girls are, I didn't invite them." I blow feathers out of my face in a huff of air.

"Sorry I asked," says Felix, and his voice is a little cold, which makes me feel even worse, like I'm letting him down somehow.

"You forgot 'overnight success' stylists," a new voice says from behind me.

I turn. Portia is smiling at me, and by her side, Cinna.

"You came!" I squeal, and give them each a kiss on the cheek.

In keeping with their trademark designs, they have both styled themselves in simple elegance. The most distinctive feature of Portia's outfit is a cascade of feathers which appear to fall from each wrist, but which move with her and never hit the floor. I don't know how she achieves these things. The photographer has become interested again, which means that half the Capitol stores will be trying to replicate this design by tomorrow, and none of them will be able to.

Cinna, in a flowing loose outfit of black trousers and shirt, appears at first glance to have disregarded the party theme (he could get away with that easily if he had; he wears nothing the magazines think of as fashion, and yet they love everything he does) but when I look at him properly, I see the way the fabric ripples and shifts to create the lines of a mockingjay across the canvas of his whole body. It's beautiful and subtle, and as usual, I feel slightly awkward and overdone next to him. I like Cinna, but he never fails to leave me tongue-tied.

Felix clears his throat, and I introduce them, although it sticks in my throat a little as I describe him as my boyfriend. I don't know what's wrong with me tonight. I suppose it's just that I didn't get enough sleep.

Felix gushes about their most famous designs, and I knock back the rest of my drink, looking around for someone to replenish it. An Avox is at my side in an instant, replacing my empty glass with a full one. By the time I tune back in to the conversation, Portia is agreeing to introduce Felix to the junior Gamemaker. Felix sort of pats me on the shoulder as he follows her. It's sort of like an acknowledgement of my presence, I suppose, although he doesn't even bother to try to get me to come with him.

No, really, what is _wrong_ with me? Tonight is going exactly as planned, and I'm standing here in a snit.

I wonder if I have any mood-lifters in my purse. Clearly, I need them.

Cinna raises an eyebrow at me with a smile, and I wonder how much of my thoughts he can hear. "Happy birthday, Octavia," he says quietly.

I realise that he's the first person to say that to me tonight.

"Thanks," I say, meeting his eyes and then not knowing where to look, because his intensity is off-putting. It's like he really sees me, like he looks behind the feathers and the headpiece and the skin dye and sees _me_ , and it makes me very uncomfortable.

"So, birds?" he asks, and then stops with a practised smile as the photographer comes up to snap our picture together. Honestly, Cinna's so popular now that having him at my party is even more of a coup than having any of the others, with the added bonus that he actually knows who I am.

"And mockingjays specifically," he continues, his voice low, as the photographer moves on again. "Any particular reason?"

"What do you mean?" I ask with a frown. "It's for Katniss, of course. She's made mockingjays the most fashionable thing since fire." I smile at him, hoping that wasn't an offensive thing to say. There really shouldn't be any comparison between his and Portia's incredible design for the tribute parade, and the little token Katniss wore which has taken off so rapidly throughout the city. Mockingjays are just a bit easier to turn into a fashion accessory than fire.

He studies me, making me even more uncomfortable. "I hear you went out to the arena site yesterday," he says. "What did you think of that?"

It doesn't surprise me that anyone would be able to find out I was there but it does surprise me that anyone would care. Visitors' entry logs aside, there are cameras and microphones everywhere in the arena, and I know that being part of a prep team for the Games means extra surveillance (that's for our own protection) but why would anyone bother to talk about me? Who did he hear it from?

I can't ask him any of that. "It was a perfect day," I say, wondering if I sound convincing, terrified that some hint of the things I thought there might slip through. "Those Games were really special, even if I _am_ a bit biased!"

He looks unconvinced, to my dismay. "Yes, Katniss Everdeen is a very special girl," he says, drawing closer to me and keeping his voice low. "But you know that better than most people, because you've spent time with her. What did you think of seeing the places from her Games in person?"

I'm starting to panic because it's like he really _can_ read my thoughts. I don't know what to say. I glance around for someone to rescue me, but now I can't see anyone at all I know – the room seems filled with strangers, any one of whom could be waiting to report me. Report me! My breathing has got very fast, and I feel light-headed. I'm not even sure what I think they'd report me _for_. I just know from the tone of Cinna's voice that something very serious is going on.

Cinna puts a calming hand on my arm. "It's all right, Octavia. Forget I asked." His eyes flick around my face, and again I have the feeling that he can strip away all my outer layers. I don't like it.

He lets go of my arm, and opens his mouth as though he's about to say something, but then just closes it again. He looks slightly disappointed.

"It's a lovely party," is all he says. "I was honoured to be invited."

It's a ridiculous thing to say, when he is raising the social standing of the entire event just with his presence, but I thank him politely. I'm still very flustered, but my breathing is returning to normal.

He leans in to kiss my cheek, and his voice tickles against my ear. "It hasn't been only me asking. Be careful. Mockingjays can be dangerous."

I pull away, staring at him. He gives me a little bow and walks away.

My head is hurting from the drink and the tension in my forehead. I don't understand at all. I can't even begin to make sense of what Cinna said, but his words make me feel so strange, waking something huge and terrible inside me. It's the same thing I felt in the early hours of the morning of the feast a few months ago. I still don't know what it is, and I never want to find out.

It takes several pills, a large plate of the finest desserts the caterers have brought and an hour of gossip with Emilia (when she finally arrives with a new man on her arm) to make me feel somewhat normal again. But the party is soured for me, and I am somehow not surprised when a girl I don't know actually inhales a feather and has to be taken to hospital. It feels like a fitting end to the night.

Felix finds me again after the ambulance has been and gone, the party winding down and everyone leaving in high excitement over the drama. I don't know where he was while I was trying to deal with calling the doctors (Venia ended up doing it for me) but he seems glad to see me now. He locks his arms around my back, pulling me close. His cheeks are flushed beneath his pale makeup, and for a moment his face is unfamiliar to me. "Great party," he says. "Petronius Blake was here, did you know? He said he'd take a look at some of my designs."

I can't remember who Petronius Blake is, and I don't actually care right now. "Someone nearly choked to death on a feather," I say. "That's not anyone's idea of a good party."

He laughs. "Sure it is. You'll definitely get a write-up now."

It's true, although I'd been hoping for a piece praising the party's elegance, style and food. I don't want people to laugh at me.

Felix drops his hands lower, pulling me even more tightly to him. I wish he wasn't quite so close, but it seems rude to say so. "You did beautifully, darling," he murmurs into my ear. "They'll all remember how perfect everything was, not that little mishap."

I don't actually believe him, but it's very sweet of him to say, and I tell him so.

His arms squeeze me tightly, his breath hot against my cheek. "Let's get out of here," he says.

Before I can stop it, my mind flicks onto a wig stuffed in the back of a closet. I wince, and close the closet door in my memory as firmly as I closed it in reality last night, but from there my mind skips to an image of myself at thirteen, curled up on the ground in Finnick Odair's arena.

I wall off that memory, too.

"No, Felix," I say.

I can feel the change in him, the way he pulls back to look at me. It makes me panic, and for a moment, I don't think I can speak. But I pull myself together and repeat, "No." I take his arms gently from around me and put them by his sides. "You go home. I'll call you another time."

"What's wrong?" he asks, puzzled.

What's wrong? I couldn't answer that question if I tried.

I don't think I ever intend to.


End file.
